Rebecca Case Study

Part I: List student's learning strengths, needs and personal interests/attributes

Academic Strengths:

• does well in small group setting for reading instruction
• can recall significant details of a story
• gross motor function - including
• visual fine motor - sentence copying, visual recognition, left-right discrimination, imitative finger movements, finger opposition, eye-hand coordination
• picture naming
• gross motor function - body position, physical acumen
• horizontally arranged computation problems in math
• organizational and conceptual skills in recognizing similarities of shapes and symbols
• good reasoning capabilities in tasks involving association and categorization of sets of pictures and non-linguistic symbols
• used vocabulary and comprehension skills to solve oral addition and subtraction problems
• Strengths from WISC-IV Integrated: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, processing speed, verbal similarities, verbal comprehension, picture concepts, matrix reasoning, coding and symbol search.

Academic Needs:

• Reading - basic reading skills and reading fluency, sound blending, written language, word reversals, remembering letters in the wrong order, visual memory and overall concentration, frequent word substitutions and word reversals. Delayed reading accuracy. Limited sight vocabulary. Word decoding skills, applying phonetic principles to pronounce words. Identifying letter sounds and blends (including b and d). Underlying sequential processing affects both receptive and production of symbolic language.
• Reading Comprehension: unable to retell a story, grasp main ideas and themes.
• Writing - writes slowly and laboriously, affecting her ability to express ideas in writing. Lack of phonetic or visual strategies for encoding
• Following directions - can forget what is asked of her, difficulty carrying out verbal directions and serial commands, understanding complex phrases
• (from Kindergarten) difficulty coloring and writing
• Math - Counting, days of week, telling time (Visual and auditory sequencing), difficulty with concepts of time and quantity, impulsivity when solving word problems (overlooked details), confused plus and minus signs, difficulty with vertically arranged problems, difficulty with focusing on details that distinguish one shape from another, difficulty with identifying patterns to complete a series (sequential processing and recognizing important details)
• From WISC-IV: Working memory, digit span, letter-number sequencing
• Distractible, impulsive approach to some problems (decoding words, identifying details)
• Visual and auditory sequencing (both math and reading)

Interest Areas/Personal Attributes & Accomplishments:

• cooperative
• well-liked by peers
• enjoys positive self image
• enthusiastic and cooperative in assessments
• active and attentive in assessments
• complied with most required tasks

Part II: Strategies aligned to the student's strength's and needs

Academic Need #1 Unable to retell a story and grasp the main events and overall themes

Strength: She can retell significant details from the story.
Strategy: Fishbone strategy for helping Rebecca organize the significant details of a story (which she can do) into a summarized version, using the who, what, where, when, why, and how technique. You then write a summary statement from the information you have identified. (Winebrenner, 101)

Academic Need #2 Counting

Strength: Finger imitative movements
Strategy: TouchMath. Helps tactile-kinesthetic learners understand basic math operations. Hands-on math learning without actual manipulatives. Each digit is drawn with the number of dots of the value of the number. You touch the number at the dots (touch points) and count to the number value. Also provides association between the symbol and value of the number. Uses tactile, auditory and visual learning styles.

Academic Need #3 Following verbal directions, especially complex commands

Strength:
Teacher numerates the directions into 3 steps, contained in a few words. Example: If the verbal directions are, "Alright students, no we are going to write in our writer's journals. Please take out a piece of paper and a pencil, then make three columns on your paper and write at the top of the left column "Home" followed by "School" followed by "World." Directions for Rebecca could be written on the board as: (1) Paper + Pencil on desk (2) Draw 3 columns (3) Left column: Home, Middle column: School, Right column: World. The teacher can draw a picture when appropriate. To ensure Rebecca understands, the teacher can ask her to repeat back the directions.

Academic Need #4 Identifying letter sounds and blends (including b and d)

The Fernauld Word-Tracing Method in Winebrenner, 119
Rebecca will write problematic words on index cards in crayon. She will then trace the word with her finger, saying it aloud as she does. After several times, she will turn the card over and write the word from memory. She will keep these cards for her own reference.

Academic Need #5 Auditory and visual sequencing in reading

Strength: social skills, Rebecca does better in small groups and is well respected by her peers
Strategy: Sequencing (Winebrenner, 102)
Rebecca will work with a buddy who has competent sequencing skills.

1. In buddies, list the events of a story on writing paper in no particular order. They should begin each event on a new line and leave spaces in between. (Model how to tell when a new event is being described by "thinking out loud.")
2. Have students cut apart the event statements, and arrange them in their proper sequence. (colored paper might be useful)
3. When the events are in their proper order, students number them and tape them in order to a large sheet of paper.
4. The students read the story aloud in its proper sequence.